Top 9 Television Shows I Re-watch on a Semi-Regular Basis

There. I said it. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, right?

No. I will never recover. Don’t want to. I like television. There’s just too much good storytelling there.

Some people even say we’re living in a golden age of television. I can’t speak to that because I don’t watch live television anymore. Instead, I subscribe to… well, not all the services, but close.

And there are a few shows I find myself re-watching on a regular basis. Some of them I’ve seen so many times, I can recite lines by heart.

9. The West Wing

I didn’t watch The West Wing when it was new. I found it when I was off work for a President’s Day weekend and one network had a marathon.

That was almost ten years ago. I’ve re-watched it at least once a year since.

If Martin Sheen ran for president, I’d vote for him hoping he could channel Jed Bartlett.

Seriously.

The West Wing has been criticized as a “utopian view of a Washington that doesn’t exist.”

I agree. And that’s why it is so powerful. It gave us hope for what we could be.

And the world needs that almost as much as it needs high-speed dialogue spouted while walking in circles.

8. Fringe

Fringe is the only J.J. Abrams show I’ve watched where the plot makes sense. Does that say something about me?

Probably.

It’s the science fiction I would write if I was smarter.

I like it when my SciFi makes me think about my understanding of reality. Fringe does.

Besides, Fringe made me realize I could forgive Joshua Jackson for Dawson’s Creek.

I was so disappointed in how far the he fell from the Mighty Ducks.

7. Archer

Sometimes, I need to laugh until I almost pee myself.

6. Angel

I’m a Joss Whedon fanboy. I can’t deny it. So everything I’m about to say comes from a place of love.

Angel is not his best work.

The characters aren’t as well developed as other Whedon shows, the metaphors are heavy-handed, and everyone agrees about season four.

But, I still love it. I think the brooding and flappy long coats carry me through.

Plus, it has Lorne. Lorne is the best thing Whedon ever put on television.

5. Doctor Who (Starting in 2005)

I grew up on Doctor Who. When I was a kid, PBS was our cultural outlet. Along side the NOVA specials and Monty Python, we watched Doctor Who.

When the series relaunched in 2005, I got on board. I paid for the extra channels on my cable package so I could get BBC America.

I got hooked all over again. Christopher Eccleston was brilliant—a phrase I would not use if it weren’t for the Ninth Doctor.

By the time I got to David Tennant? Forget it. Doctor Who was back in my life to stay.

A few years ago, I tried watching some of the original series stories. I don’t want to crap on anyone’s nostalgia, but those cherished childhood memories are better left as memories.

4. Firefly (And Serenity)

If you need me to explain why Firefly is 13 hours of binge-worthy television, we can’t be friends.

3. Babylon 5

There are Star Trek geeks and Star Wars geeks. Then, there are the ultra geeks, the Babylon 5 geeks.

The show is getting dated. They live on a space station, 200 years in the future, but they still have tubes in their monitors as one example. It can distract if you let it.

Strange anachronisms aside, Babylon 5 is the most scientifically accurate space opera ever made. It also has just about everything I want in fiction: politics, religion, moral ambiguity.

You can’t go wrong.

The only downside for binge re-watching is its length and weight. It isn’t the longest show on the list but there is so much depth.

Babylon 5 is dense and fulfilling. It is the television equivalent of mashed potatoes.

2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I actually just finished re-watching BTVS. It reminded me of what it was like when I was 13 and sitting down to watch a brand new show for the first time.

I don’t know what made me latch onto a television show based on a bad movie. I just did.

I don’t regret it.

Back then, I didn’t know I was watching what might be the most influential television show of the last 20 years.

Also, BTVS much created a prototype for my entire genre of writing. So, I can justify re-watches as being research.

1. CHUCK

Have you ever had one of those shows you think of as yours? Just something you love and feel like the rest of the world doesn’t understand?

CHUCK is that show for me.

I don’t know if I can explain it.

I think I watched because it had Adam Baldwin and I was suffering from Firefly withdrawal. What I found was a wonderful geek show full of humor and some great characters.

Maybe I watch too much tv

This isn’t even a complete list of my binge-watching shows. There are many more shows. Too many.

I should consider smashing my television with a sledge hammer.

It’s good for humanity.

Published by M.A. Brotherton

M.A. Brotherton is a writer, blogger, artist, and fat-kid from the suburbs of Kansas City, Missouri. He’s tasted a little bit of everything the Midwest has to offer, ranging from meth-tweaking rednecks in massive underground cave complexes to those legendary amber waves of grain. When he’s not writing, he spends most of his time screwing around on the internet.